The Spike-Chunsoft-developed fighting game features original manga and anime characters from more than 30 different Shonen Jump franchises including One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Dragon Ball Z and more. At the time of writing, Bandai Namco wasn’t prepared to talk about the final character roster for the West and expects to make announcements closer to the launch window.

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Bandai Namco producer Koji Nakajima collaborated with the publisher of Shonen Jump on choosing which characters to include in the game, deciding not to concentrate on old-school characters, but instead creating a mix from each generation. Negotiating the licenses for these characters was a big hurdle for bringing the game to the West. Nakajima told IGN that surprisingly, the most difficult part of the project wasn't securing the licensing of the characters, but figuring out how to implement the action of each character.

“There are some characters who don't fight in their [original] manga so it was very difficult to image how Goku and those [other] characters will be fighting in the same stage. In terms of creating the motions and actions, all of those were approved by each licensee after having a lot of discussions and negotiations. Implementing those actions was the most difficult part and I spent a lot of time discussing it with the dev team.”

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The base title, J-Stars Victory VS, launched in Japan in March with 39 playable characters and 13 support characters. But Nakajima’s original vision involved a greater number of fighters. “As a big fan of Shonen Jump, I wanted to include all of the licences that are on Shonen Jump,” Nakajima says. “So it is one of my dreams, if I was given another chance to create another game like this, I would like to challenge myself to include all of the characters from Shonen Jump.”

Players can battle with these characters in several game modes. The J-Adventure Story single-player mode consists of four campaigns split between Luffy, Naruto, Ichigo or Torik. Players explore a world map in the Jump universe as they build a team, battle various opponents and complete quests on their path to become the best fighter in the J Battle Festival. 2 vs. 2 Team Battle mode allows team combat with a total of four players in online multiplayer and two players in local offline play. Western regions will also have access to an exclusive Arcade mode that provides one-on-one matches.

Apart from an extra mode, the latest version integrates game balance adjustments-based feedback from fans of the Japanese version. Nakajima believes the most special feature of J-Stars Victory VS+ is the interactions of characters that wouldn’t be seen in the original mangas. For instance, seeing Luffy and Goku having a conversation in a cutscene will be special treat for fans.

In order to win battles, players must fill up the meter the three sections of the “Win” gauge at the top of the screen, with each section topping up whenever an opponent is defeated. To help players kick ass in unique ways, each character possesses their own specialties, playstyles and attacks coming from their respective manga or anime franchise.

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Players also have access to fast regular attacks that do not use stamina; slower, stamina-using power attacks; and long-ranged attacks that can affect widespread enemies. Combination attacks happen when the player and an ally fighter locks on to the same opponent and begin making combos together.

Each fighter has one visually dramatic ultimate attack and multiple special attacks. For example, Naruto can transform himself into Sage mode, opening up a whole new set of powerful moves. Ultimate finishing moves are activated when the Voltage gauge maxes out, a meter that fills up as team-members successfully land attacks and call in Assists.

The team battle game’s 11 fighting stages consist of recognizable places like “Planet Namek”, “Alabasta”, and “Hidden Leaf Village” from the various franchises such as One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, Toriko and Naruto. All 3D battlefields are destructible, and dishing out lasting damage upon the environments appealed to my destructive side.

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Coming to North America and Europe in summer 2015 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PS Vita, the game seemed to run smoothly on Sony’s current-gen console. Even with so much going on the screen with the different fight effects, over-the-top fighter animations and destruction of the battle stages, the game appeared to hold its own.

Even if you're not a huge fan of the Jump universe, small recognition goes a long way when you play as the well-known characters, pitting their iconic special moves up against each other. Diehard fans will obviously revel seeing who would win in a fight with their favorite characters. I thought it was a fun, eye-candy-filled fighting experience, potentially offering a large roster of fighters and moves to experiment with. However, it was hard to discern from my brief time with it if fighting game aficionados would be impressed with its gameplay and whether its fighting mechanics have the strength to hold their attention.

Jenna Pitcher is a freelance journalist writing for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter.